Ohio Gadfly Daily

Faced with enormous budgetary shortfalls, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) voted in May 2013 to close forty-seven schools, one of the largest waves of school closings in U.S. history. Shortly thereafter, CPS adopted a policy aimed at relocating more than ten thousand displaced students into higher-performing CPS schools for the 2013—14 school year. The district called the schools that absorbed displaced students “welcoming schools.” This policy was supported by research showing that students affected by closure benefit academically if they land in a better school. The welcoming schools were all higher-performing on CPS’s internal measures of performance; they also received additional resources to ease the influx of new students (e.g., student safety and instructional supports). But how did the policy play out? Did displaced students actually enroll in their assigned welcoming school? According to University of Chicago researchers, 66 percent of displaced students enrolled in their welcoming school in fall 2013. Meanwhile, 25 percent of displaced students attended other neighborhood-based CPS schools, while 4 percent attended a charter and 4 percent attended a magnet school. An analysis of student records indicates that distance from home, building safety concerns, and residential mobility were all significant reasons why students did not attend their welcoming school. (Parent interviews also highlighted some of the issues in choosing a post-closure school.) The study does not report the academic results for CPS students post-closure. (Stay tuned for a new Fordham report in March on how Ohio students fare after closure.) Overall, CPS crafted a reasonable though...

Cheers to Cardinal Schools in Geauga County. Experts in autism education have deemed the district an exemplar of best practices for inclusion and support. Their “model classrooms” were videotaped in action earlier this month, and the footage will be shared with educators across the state and the country. Of additional note: Cardinal is connected to two district merger proposals that would, if successful, bring their expertise directly to students with autism in three other county districts.

Jeers to the board, administration, and sponsor of Gateway Academy, a charter school in Franklin County. Last week, Ohio Auditor Dave Yost announced that the school’s financial records were “incomplete, unauditable and inexcusable.” Thankfully, annual audits of charter schools are mandated under law in Ohio, and sponsors are held accountable when those audits uncover a mire such as this.

Cheers to wider publicity for the EdChoice Scholarship voucher program, no matter how it happens. Dayton City Schools would rather hold students hostage than let thousands of eligible kids leave with a voucher due to the persistent poor performance of their schools. Fortunately for families, the Dayton Daily News covered the district’s determination in a lot of depth…including a full list of the eligible school buildings, information on the income-based voucher program, and a peek at the private schools accepting voucher students. Excellent publicity for EdChoice, we’d say.

Wow. Leave it to State Auditor Dave Yost to have his own incisive take on charter law reform. While the current media narrative is “sponsor-centric” reforms vs. “school-centric” reforms, let’s just say that Yost thinks that neither approach is 100 percent on the mark for him. His work auditing sponsors and investigating schools has led him to the central question of when a charter school is acting as a private organization vs. when they take on a governmental role in educating children. He’ll be advocating for Ohio to define the line between these functions, and he’s got a thing or two to say about monitoring/reporting attendance and online coursework. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

PARCC testing in Ohio is likely back on again today in most places as last week’s cold snap – which closed schools for days – ebbs a bit. This gave Toledo Blade columnist Marilou Johanek time to opine somewhat confoundingly on testing, largely from the perspective of her own son. She says he was an “overconfident” test taker in the days of OAAs but that he’s now one with the “stressed-out masses”. You might think that this is because he – and she – perceives the tests to be too hard. But you’d be wrong. She says it’s because “Suddenly, students…who have spent years habitually learning to regurgitate facts to pass tests, are being asked to think critically. They don’t even know what that means. They don’t get the question. Rote memorization is all they

Editors in Canton agree with Chad today while opining on charter law reforms proposed by Governor Kasich. Well, they really just take one item from his recent House testimony with which they agree, while basically saying the proposals don’t go far enough to suit them. But we’ll take the media hit…and Chad will happily accept the editors’ agreement. Both happen so rarely. (Canton Repository)

Well, PARCC testing in Ohio – and pretty much everything else – came to a screeching halt when Elsa worked her magic on us, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t Common Core news to talk about. What does it mean to align curriculum to a set of standards? How does that play out in a classroom/school/district? Journalist Chike Erokwu digs into those questions in this thoughtful piece. Spoiler alert: there is art and writing involved, group discussion, a teaching framework from a non-profit organization, and lots of direct input from teachers and administration. The superintendent says the framework he and his staff have created “gives structure to the work that’s going on in the classroom (and) that’s a great thing.” Why yes it is, sir. (Mansfield News Journal)

It’s been cold and snowy in central Ohio for the last few days, causing traffic slowdowns and other headaches. But what were some local charter school leaders doing in the pre-dawn hours yesterday morning? Not checking to see whether they should cancel school, but instead tearing across town in the snow to get to Columbus City Schools’ facilities office to be first in line to put bids on closed school buildings. While charters getting first crack at buying surplus buildings is a step up from previous years when they were routinely shut out of bidding, I don’t think that the Death Race-style crack-of-dawn jockeying was truly the intent of the state law passed last year that put charters first in line. On a personal note, I’m glad to see my old elementary school appears to be getting a new tenant: one of the highest-rated charters in the city. Congrats. (Columbus Dispatch)

In the midst of the aforementioned weather misery, this week has been showtime for the state’s new PARCC tests. How’s it going? The PD’s Patrick O’Donnell gives us the Northeast Ohio perspective in this piece. Approximately 100,000 students had at least started testing as of yesterday and the glitches reported to O’Donnell seem pretty low key to me. Remember Mentor Supe Matt Miller’s gloomy predictions in front of the Senate Education Committee last week? Now he says, “It's not widespread and it's not blocks of kids… It's more isolated incidents.” Today’s record deep freeze will likely be

Here’s more discussion of proposed charter funding changes…with charts. And something else to note: the PD is the only major daily in the state whose comments section is free and open to all. As I publish these clips, there are well over 300 comments on this story with no sign of slowing. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

If you can stand it, here is one more piece on charter school funding proposals. That story is packaged with another, which features the good folks at Innovation Ohio discussing charter law reforms in both the budget and other legislation currently in hearings in the General Assembly. Interestingly, while they seem supportive of the mainly “sponsor-centric” reforms on offer, they add highlight other changes they’d like to see, which are much more “school-centric”. To wit: “swifter closure of failing charters, transparency standards equal to district schools, and funding that does not punish districts.” Worth a read. (Gongwer Ohio)

Chad is also quoted in this story from the Advocate, which is perceptive in noting that much of the charter law reform currently being proposed in Ohio is sponsor-centric. That is, putting the onus on sponsors to make sure their practices are of the highest order with the belief that that will improve schools…or at least spotlight the poor performers which can then be acted upon. (Newark Advocate)

The Ohio Board of Regents released a report last week on teacher preparation programs in the state, tracing results from the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System back to the university program that prepared the educator. Some of the data is limited, but this is the third year such a report has been done and BOR folks think they’re seeing some important changes in teacher prep practices as a result. (Gongwer Ohio)

Nice look at dual enrollment in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana: the means by which high school students can get college credit for courses taken while still in high school. There are a number of avenues in each state, but the availability and the processes vary greatly from high school to high school. Ohio is working

Community stakeholders in Cincinnati – including philanthropy, education, and more – have formed a coalition whose goal is to transform education outcomes for students in the Queen City by creating an ecosystem of high-performing schools accessible to all children.

The nascent non-profit organization is called The Cincinnati Schools Accelerator, and they are looking for a dynamic leader who believes in the mission of attracting and growing proven school models – regardless of type – and building the talent pipeline needed to fuel a local system of high-performing schools.

To learn more about the Cincinnati Schools Accelerator organization and to apply for the CEO position, click here. Application deadline is March 25, 2015.

This is an opportunity to make a real difference for families in Cincinnati and Ohio Gadfly applauds the efforts.

The chart below shows the 2013-14 proficiency rates for low-income African American students in Ohio. The achievement gap between low-income African American students and white students is most pronounced in science (45 percentage point gap) when compared to math (33 points) and reading (21 points). The data shown on this chart should give us reason to consider how we can dramatically improve the scientific knowledge of low-income African American students. (Worth noting is that the highest-wage jobs today are for college graduates in engineering and technological majors.) There are some instances of science and industry helping low-income, predominately minority schools (see here and here). More investments like these need to be made.

In case you missed it on Twitter, Chad testified in favor of HB2 in front of the House Education Committee yesterday, along with several other witnesses. You can find thorough coverage from Gongwer Ohio and the Columbus Dispatch. Some good questions from legislators on the important subject of charter law reform. They are clearly engaged on the issue. Chad’s full written testimony is here, if you’re so inclined.

We haven’t been talking too much about Common Core lately. To redress that imbalance, here is an interesting and detailed look at how teachers in high-flying Hudson Schools have implemented the standards. Probably a text-book example of the fact that no matter how “common” the standards might be, the implementation – and the implications for student success – is as local as the four walls of every individual classroom. (Hudson Hub Times)

One of the reasons why the standards themselves have not been in the news as much lately is that much of the media focus has been on testing – the first statewide test-drive of Common Core-aligned PARCC assessments is upon us. In the piece from Hudson above, teachers lament the long lag time in receiving scores from PARCC the first time around. As we told you yesterday, there are new “safe harbor” provisions for PARCC takers in the works, and bills to strictly limit the amount of time spent on testing. And then there’s the whole “let’s just stop all testing” rhetoric. I think